The Light-Stone Miner

 

This was a fast, one-day job for a hard-working Matoran collab. My model, a laborous lightstone miner from Onu-Koro, is a small love letter to Mata Nui Online Game, aka MNOG, the best and most-loved Bionicle thing there is. It's a magical thing for a free online game promoting a plastic warrior toy line. It's got the atmosphere, and style, and a warm heart. Onu-Wahi sequence is my favourite - with both magic of the sundial and the extraordinary worker's union discussion on Whenua's hut. Play it yourself.

Anyway, an Onu-Matoran miner. I wanted him to be small and short; as matoran should be. I took the hard route and used purple, old classic purple, and half of the pieces I had in this colour. I had even picked the black Huna off my Kane-ra when last visiting my parents - It's my favourite noble mask. The actual seed part was the horse bridle. I made a headlamp that could be strapped around the head. I also tried a candle version, as Onu-Matoran on MNOG have candles on their masks. But as they were digging for lightstones, a lightstone headlamp made sort of sense...

I wanted the torso have similar aesthetics than the Miramax designs in the movies. It felt too hard (and maybe boring?) to try re-creating a Tohunga torso, and I never likes the 2003 matoran set designs with their weird hunchbacks. Nevertheless, I kept the limbs short and feet big; honestly, I'm not huge fan of th feet, but it was hard to find a decent design with the limited array of purple parts! But they needed to be purple to balance the colours; black feet would have sort of faded.

I completed the model with a lightstone and some ropes. I had various ideas for utensils, but they didn't play out. I though about a dynamite detonator, but it would have concealed the torso, which was the best part. A wheelbarrow would have been nice... but they don't really have wheels, and crab-leg-barrow felt overcomplicates (I admit, it could have been fun). But with the rope I could get an organic pattern that was very non-bionicle, creating an interesting contrast on the model. It turned out pretty nice.

-Eero.